Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
Jade
Thursdays were the worst. I had class from eight until four, two classes of which I had exams. Then I had to work. Thankfully, my boss cut me early.
Squishy greeted me when I shuffled through the front door of the frat house, bags in hand. When I didn’t immediately bend to pet him, he shot off toward the kitchen on a screech.
Wolf was at the table with his algebra book open in front of him.
“Hey.” I kissed his cheek on my way past.
“Hey. How was work?”
I dropped the bags onto the counter. “About as good as roller skating in butt crack-chafing spandex for three hours can be.” I pulled the “best if used by” chicken from the bag, followed by the “best if used by” broccoli and shredded cheese. Seven bucks wasn’t a bad deal at all.
And seeing as Wolf had given me five hundred bucks for “my half” of the picture I didn’t take from the old serial killer’s trailer (he’d tried to give me all of it), I figured I could spare seven bucks and make him dinner.
I’d also insisted on giving him the money for my tires, as much as he’d argued. The rest, I’d used to pay off my parents’ mortgage debt. I never thought I’d see a day when that wasn’t hanging over my parents’ head, but it was looking possible. Only thanks to Wolf.
He was great. We were great. Almost like before but not quite. I guessed there was a new awareness from both of us. I sensed the hesitancy in him at times. He still hadn’t told me he loved me since that first drunken night, but I didn’t blame him. I blamed me. I was the one who had broken us first.
My mistakes do not define me.
Fear lit up his eyes as he scanned the groceries. “Chicken casserole?”
“Look, they had all the ingredients in the clearance aisle.” It wouldn’t have been my first choice of meal to cook for him. “I learned from my mistake, okay?” Last time, I hadn’t cooked the chicken before putting it in the casserole. I called that growth.
He didn’t look convinced. “Oh, guess what?” He pulled a paper from underneath his book, proudly displaying it. “Eighty-nine.”
Pride swelled in my chest. I took the paper from him, glancing at the eighty-nine circled at the top of the paper before I grabbed his face and kissed him.
“That’s so good.” Never did I think I would see Wolf Brookes looking so damn cute, actually proud of doing anything that wasn’t football. “I’m proud of you,” I said.
He pulled me onto his lap. “I might actually have a shot at avoiding academic suspension thanks to you.” He kissed my lips, then my forehead. “Thank you.”
I stroked the stubble of his jaw. “Anytime.” In the grand scheme of helping each other, he’d done far more for me, and he knew it, but he looked so happy. For a second, I wanted to just bask in his success.
I kissed him once more, then pushed to my feet and went to the stove to grab a skillet. When I took my phone from my pocket to look up the recipe, an unopened Lonely Fans notification ribbon danced on the screen.
ToesToesToes has sent you $500.
The same subscriber who’d sent me fifty last week.
I’d seen it earlier that morning but had refused to open it due to the anxious knot in my stomach.
God only knew what someone would want me to do for five hundred bucks!
And I dreaded telling Wolf. I couldn’t put it off forever, though.
That was kind of a big deal, and the sort of thing he deserved to know about.
I turned my back to the stove, checking that Wolf was busy with his homework before I opened the message.
No request again. Just a tip.
Two tips. Fifty bucks, and five hundred bucks. Suspicion niggled at me. Those numbers were familiar. Specific. I glanced back at Wolf, who was focusing on his homework.
Could it be a coincidence that he had offered me an extra fifty bucks from the sale of that tractor? Or that he’d tried to give me the full thousand dollars for that picture. I was sure if I worked it out in my calendar, that first tip would have been sent right after he’d stolen that tractor.
I typed out a message to the Lonely Fans profile:
Thank you so much.
Then stared at Wolf as I pressed send. Sure enough, his phone vibrated on the table. Even from where I stood, I recognized the little pink ribbon that popped onto his screen.
He’d given me money via my legal attempt at sex work. Which I knew he hated. I wasn’t sure whether to melt or be mad. He’d probably just deny it if I asked, so I cut up the chicken and banked that information for later.
When everything was in the oven, I took a seat at the table across from Wolf.
“So, I Googled the serial killer.”
He glanced up from his homework, pencil in hand, and one brow lifted. “Of course you did.”
“No, listen. The guy was nearly ninety years old, right? But there have been six unresolved missing kid cases in Pikestown between the sixties and the nineties.”
The arch to his brow grew. “Kids go missing all the time.”
“Yeah, but in the last twenty years, since he got old and probably too slow to run them down…nothing.”
Deadpanning me, he put down his pencil and folded his massive, tattooed arms over his book. “Let me guess, you want to go back in the daytime and look for graves?”
A shiver lifted the hairs on my arms, like the old man’s ghost was touching me. “What? No!” I patted myself in an effort to shoo it away.
“Just think. You could solve cold cases.” He picked up his pencil again and scribbled an equation down in his notebook. Doing the parentheses first, just like I taught him. “Maybe Pikestown would give you a key to the city.”
“Who would want that?”
“Plenty of people.”
“A key to New York, sure, but Pikestown…” I swept a stray crumb from the table, which Squishy immediately gobbled up. “Anyway, I’m telling you, we profited from a serial killer.” Then a thought occurred to me. “If they figure out it’s him, they’d find our DNA in his trailer.”
Wolf shoved up from the table, went to a drawer, and pulled out a box of tinfoil. “Here.” He ripped off a sheet on his way back to the table. “I think you need this,” he said, laying the foil over my head.
“When this becomes some massive thing, I’m going to say I told you so.” Pushing to my feet, I snatched the foil away while he grinned.
“Wonder what they’d call him? The Tooth Fairy?” Wolf chuckled to himself. “Molar Murderer.”
I went to the oven and pulled out the bubbling casserole, studying it like it would have a flashing beacon saying it had salmonella. “The Canine Carver.”
“Smells good,” Wolf said.
Well, at least it had that going for it. I dished it up, trying to pretend I wasn’t nervous. Last time, it was just him who had gotten food poisoning. This time, I figured I should at least go down with him.
“I cooked the chicken really well.” I put the plates on the table.
Steam rose from Wolf’s fork when he shoveled a heaping amount into his mouth, no hesitation—brave man—or apparent feeling in his mouth.
His eyes widened. I was certain he was about to spit it out. “Holy shit. This is good.”
I speared a piece of chicken. It was about as moist as the Sahara. Evidently, he had low standards, but it was definitely cooked.
Halfway through dinner, Wolf’s phone vibrated on the table.
I wouldn’t have looked, but it kept going and going.
And he made no effort to answer. I stilled at the sight of Nora’s name flashing on the screen.
The photograph of the two of them at Hendrix’s party popped into my mind, and unease trickled over me.
Wolf eventually silenced the phone, then crammed more food into his mouth. Meanwhile, I stared at the now-dark screen. So, we were just going to ignore that…
“We’re still friends,” he said nonchalantly. Like being good enough friends with an ex that she called on a random Thursday night wasn’t a big deal…
“I didn’t ask.” I knew my tone was snippy, but I couldn’t help it.
“Your face doesn’t hide shit, Jade.” Another mouthful of food. “You’re pissed.”
How very observant of him. I reminded myself that men could be idiots. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned the hard way, Wolf, it’s that it’s never ‘just friends’ for somebody.” Appetite gone, I put down my fork. “Especially when you’ve fucked them.”
His gaze fell to his plate. “Look, I never should have dated her. We were friends, and then you broke up with me.” So, it was my fault… “If anything, I used her to try to get over you.” He looked at me, and I hated the guilt tinging his features. Because I knew it was for Nora. “I don’t want her.”
“She wants you, though.”
“She doesn’t want me.”
I had to laugh. “Wolf, there isn’t a single girl in Dayton or Pikestown who wouldn’t want you. And it’s even worse to have had you and lost you. Trust me.”
“She’s just going through some shit.”
And he was the person she called? “She doesn’t have any other friends?” I lifted a brow at him.
He really was so unaware of himself. Yes, every girl wanted him, but if any of them actually knew how kind and decent he was, it would be a hundred times worse. But Nora knew. It wasn’t Wolf’s looks that were hard to let go of; it was him.
“Girls don’t call an ex unless they still have feelings.” I hated that I sounded so jealous, but Nora was a sore subject.
Seconds passed where he held my gaze. “So, you want me to stop answering when she calls?” The hint of annoyance in his tone pissed me off.
“No.” I pushed to my feet, my heart pounding out an angry, fear-filled beat as I took my plate to the trash. I was mad, but more than that, I was scared he’d choose her. “I don’t want anything.”
“Don’t do this bullshit again. Be honest with me.”
I scraped the remnants of food off the plate, refusing to look at him when I went to the sink. All the while, my chest felt like it was in a clamp.
“Jade.”
“I hate her!” The plate hit the sink with a clatter, and I turned to face him. “It’s irrational and stupid, and no one’s fault but my own. But I hate her.” I felt both relieved and ashamed of myself for saying it. It wasn’t Nora specifically. I would have hated any girl who came after me.
Finally, I met his gaze, which gave away nothing.
“When I found out you were dating her, so soon after we…” I drew in a deep breath.
“After thinking you’d changed your number to avoid me…
It killed me.” Dating, not fucking. I could have handled fucking.
There was no emotion. No connection. No expectations for some kind of future…
“That’s the reason I got blind drunk, and—” I stopped myself from talking.
His jaw ticced. “And what, Jade?”
I met his cold gaze. “And ended up with Brent.”
The sudden screech of his chair legs made me jump when he shoved up from the table. Wolf went to the back door, slamming it behind him.
So, I wasn’t allowed to not want Nora calling him, but the mere mention of Brent’s name was a no-go. I didn’t know if it was jealousy, so much as pain, on both our sides. We had both been hurt that the other had moved on.
I busied myself by cleaning up the kitchen and giving him time to stew—or time for me to build the courage to talk to him.
I wondered if he was calling Nora back, but I nipped that line of thought in the bud.
Whether I was insecure or being with Wolf made me insecure, I didn’t really know.
But I needed to fight it if were to stand a chance.
I needed to believe that he wanted me and only me.
He’d said as much. He’d given me no reason to doubt him.
I glanced down at Squishy, who had, once again, abandoned Wolf in favor of me. “I think I need to apologize,” I mumbled to him.
Wolf and I had always been too stubborn to back down, but look where that had gotten us.
I didn’t know what to say to him, but maybe I didn’t have to…
I went to the notebook he’d shoved aside before dinner, ripped out the back page, then took a seat at the table.
Wolf and I didn’t really communicate in simple words, I’m sorrys, or even I love yous.
Over the years, we’d found our own way to make each other feel important.
My brain was like a library of quotes, conjured or read.
Words that conveyed everything I felt without saying them directly.
I scribbled out the first thing that came to mind.
I think I’d miss you, even if we’d never met. It’s always been you. It will always be you.
Then I folded it meticulously, smiling as the shape of a rat appeared. Well, a fat, short rat.
I found a piece of thread in the junk drawer, made a small hole in the paper, and tied the little origami rat to Squishy’s collar. “Go find him,” I said, cracking the back door.
The little dog cocked his head, and I realized he wasn’t the most co-operative creature on a good day. I’d perhaps overestimated his willingness in this plan. “Go find him, and he’ll give you a treat.”
I almost laughed at myself, but then he shimmied his little butt outside and trotted off. He was probably going to rip it off and piss on it.
I closed the door and went to the kitchen window, watching as Squishy hopped onto the chair beside Wolf. He leaned over, took the rat from the dog’s collar, and unfolded it.
Tense seconds ticked by before he pushed up from the lawn chair, patting his thigh for Squishy to follow as he turned toward the house.
He hadn’t even closed the door before he cupped my cheek and pulled me in for a kiss that left me breathless.
“Please, don’t ever mention his name again.
” He rested his forehead on mine. “Please.”
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who was irrational.
“And I’ll tell Nora not to call me anymore. Because if Brent was still calling you…” His fingers flinched against my cheek, as though fighting the urge to curl into a fist. “I’d feel like shit. And I don’t want to make you feel that way.” Another tender kiss. “You’re all that matters.”
“Thank you. And ‘he who shall not be mentioned’ stopped calling. Think the black eye drove the message home.”
“Good.” He fumbled with the waist of my shorts, nimbly unfastening my fly. “Now, let me drive my message home…” He shoved my shorts down, then picked me up and placed me on the counter before sinking to his knees. As apologies went, he was pretty good at them…